What boys have that girls don't

No, this isn’t about the obvious. It’s about the ongoing debate over whether XX's could ever, in our wildest dreams, be as funny as XY's. Like, do we lack the necessary equipment? Are the two somehow related? Is the funny bone connected to that bone?

 

Maybe it’s being around people and parties over the Holidays and hearing women, when they do struggle to burp out a joke, caveat it more times than not with the inevitable “Well I’m not very funny...” Maybe it’s in homage to the late Christopher Hitchens, who wrote the often-misinterpreted “Why Women Aren’t Funny” provocation in the January 2007 issue of Vanity Fair.  Maybe it’s because when I walked out of Bridesmaids last summer I said to myself “that was as funny as a guy movie.” (I am embarrassed to admit it, but I was skeptical that a movie about a female wedding party could run in the same circles as a bachelor party. Shame on me.)

Or maybe I’m just ready for a little LOL. 

Because it appears that, contrary to popular belief, science is proving that men are only SLIGHTLY funnier than women.

The study, conducted by Dr. Laura “Giggles” Mickes (okay, I’m kidding about the “Giggles” part) at the University of California, San Diego, featured a whopping 32 undergraduate men and women. After writing cartoon captions, additional men and women were brought in from the outside to score the overall  “funniness”  of the captions and then attribute them to either a male or female author. The bottom line: men did score “slightly funnier” overall, but both men and women assumed that the funniest captions were written by men and the lame ones written by women.  Not the case. And, no surprise to my cocktail party friends mentioned above, women rated their funny bones much lower, giving themselves a score of 1.5 out of 5 versus men, who gave themselves a score of 2.3.

Seriously? So this "comprehensive" study proves we can make funny like the boys. Of course this was not news to funny XX's  like Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, Mae West, Mary Tyler Moore, even Marilyn Monroe.  I call her out because I know she regularly fought her funny girl image as she wanted to be seen as a “serious” actress.

 

In fact, it was Marilyn’s story that came to mind when my goddaughter came to me feeling very disappointed a while back. Seems that after being cast as Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh and the Genie in Aladdin, she landed the role of Miss Hannigan in Annie. She thought having the title role meant having the best role. I had to explain to her that the comedy roles were better and much harder. My logic worked; she rocked it as Miss Hannigan, no parental bias of course. Suffice it to say, Carol Burnett would have been proud.

Fortunately you don't need a "study" to find real proof. I believe the greatest gift to funny girls is Saturday Night Live. From Gilda Radner and Jane Curtain to Tina Fey and Amy Pohler, to Kristin Wiig and Maya Rudolph, these ladies aren’t me-toos, they’re kicking male counterpart butts outright. They've taught us that we’re no longer making funny like the boys, we’re making funny, girl-style. Agree or disagree but I laughed out loud at least four times in Bridesmaids (including once that reduced me to tears), and only twice in Hangover 2. Okay, the first Hangover rocked it, but I'd put Bridesmaids right up there.

This topic has a lot of mileage, I know that. From The New York Times to The Huffington Post, most conclude that men only THINK they are funnier than women, and women tend to reinforce it. But like the late Mr. Hitchins, I think what boys have that girls don’t is confidence. From what I see, looks like us XX’s need to tap into some of that joke juice. Because before we can convince the world that we’re as funny as men, we need to believe it ourselves. And once we do that, watch out mathematicians, because that stereotype ain't working for us, either.